Not long before the pandemic struck, Simon McKeon was asked by the non-profit Climateworks Centre to gather a group of Australia’s heaviest carbon emitters, including BHP, Rio Tinto, Orica and Woodside, and put them in a room with bankers, asset managers, the CSIRO and experts at the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

All up, the companies represent about 22 per cent of industrial emissions and 32 per cent of the ASX200.